Senator Lieberman

Introduction - April 12, 2000

Until very recently, Senator Joseph Lieberman (D-Connecticut) has never been willing - publicly or privately - to disclose the reasons for his opposition to the release of Jonathan Pollard. Instead, hiding behind a veil of "secrecy", he has been a willing tool of the CIA in its on-going exploitation of the Pollard case to call into question both the reliability of Israel as an ally, and the loyalty of the American Jewish community.

As a close confidant of President and Mrs. Clinton, Lieberman has had a disproportionately negative influence - essentially overruling the concerns of the Jewish community on this matter. In a March 8, 2000 letter to Lieberman, NY Assemblyman Sam Colman pointed out that the excuse that Hillary Clinton had used in a recent meeting for not taking a position on the Pollard case - even though she was knowledgeable about the case and about Pollard's unprecedented sentence - was that "it is not a one-sided issue and, Senator Lieberman, a Jew, is against his release."

Colman continued, "...I feel very strongly that you owe me and the entire Jewish community an explanation... why do you advocate for his remaining in prison? Don't you understand that Pollard was arrested as an American but punished as a Jew?..." When Colman's letter met with silence, he wrote to Lieberman again in April and called on the public to assist with phone calls and faxes to Lieberman's office.

On April 10, 2000 Colman received a reply from Lieberman, dated April 3. Lieberman 's response was stunning in its untruthfulness and in its ignorance of the basic facts of the Pollard case. [See Justice4JP Questions for Senator Lieberman] Lieberman did not address any of the judicial inequities of the case, which include a broken plea agreement, the use of secret evidence, and a grossly disproportionate sentence. Instead, he made the implausible suggestion that Pollard had had his day in court and had enjoyed due process. He also dismissed the entire clemency process by insisting that the courts know best and that legislators should never interfere in the judicial process - not even to rectify a miscarriage of justice. Finally, standing history on its head, Lieberman insisted that it is his "personal rule" never to interfere in the judicial process, either pre or post sentencing, and he said that that is what he is doing in the Pollard case.

Colman replied at once, demolishing Lieberman's response. Colman reminded Lieberman that he already had interfered in the Pollard case when he initiated the "Lieberman letter" which he had 60 of his colleagues sign, calling on President Clinton not to grant clemency to Jonathan Pollard. He reminded Lieberman of the judicial inequities that are part of the open record of the case, and stressed that were it not for judicial interference by Weinberger in the past, and by Lieberman currently, there never would have been a Pollard problem at all. He called on Lieberman to publicly admit his error and to actively make amends, so that justice for Jonathan Pollard may speedily be done. Assemblyman Colman is now waiting for a response from Senator Lieberman. So is Jonathan Pollard.